When did The Slog turn into Readers' Digest?

/kidding
//Love that joke

It could mean they know when they're being fed a load.

I'm just wondering if, in light of the Iranian and Libyan responses, Dan still holds to his belief that it's a good thing that these innocent victims are unarmed.

Oh. And it's a good joke, by the way.

The joke means, "No matter how talented you are, the corrupt ruling class thinks you are worthless."

If they were armed, that would be an excuse for immediate, overwhelming, force that would gain more legitimacy among the general public. Martin King made a similar point about the stupidity of an armed Black revolution in the U.S., speaking of non-violence as a smarter strategy (beside being more moral). Those of us easily convinced (or convicted in believing) that government is illegitimate forget that this is a minority view, that for most people, government is not just a monopoly on the deadliest force, but a _legitimate_ such. Legitimacy can be more amenable to attack than the possession of force, for example by having an army fire on people who are no immediate threat, or (better) just being ordered to...or by convincing people that the President is an alien.

This does not mean that there is no place for violence in effective revolution---at least, effective in getting rid of the old boys, though I think it favours those who like violence's dominating the next government. But such requires some sort of legitimacy, hence the Declaration of Independence's 'decent Respect to the opinions of Mankind' (love those old preposition-usages, so different to our current one sometimes---it gives me great sympathy with their users).

But I was GOING to say:

'Semyon Semyonovich, you are about to be liquidated, having been found guilty on your own freely-given admission of conspiring with the traitor Trotsky to destroy industrial property, subvert the workers, murder Comrade Stalin, and spread a veneral disease among our children....'

And as they're dragging him out as the judge is finishing up , Semyon screams, 'Comrade Stalin is an vicious lunatic!!!' So the judge screams back the addition, "...and revealing State secrets!!!!'

(This joke is funny to me, but inaccurate: Semyon almost certainly screamed out, 'Just you wait, Comrade Stalin will find out about this, and then...!' The Just World Fallacy, authority division, strikes again.)

A blind guy shows up to a lumber yard looking for work. The foreman says, "You can't be serious, you're blind!"
The blind man says, "Try me. I can identify any wood by smell."
The foreman brings in a piece of cherry.
"That's cherry," says the blind man.
The foreman brings in a piece of oak.
"That's oak," says the blind man.
The foreman smirks, calls the secretary over, and has her lie supine, butt naked in front of the blind man.
The blind man sniffs, looks confused, and asks for the sample to be flipped. The foreman tells the girl to flip over.
The blind man sniffs again, then smiles and says, "That's the shithouse door off a shrimp boat!"

I'm pretty sure there's no red wine from Muscat. But the joke is still funny.

@9, well there's "black" muscat, although I suppose it's a bit sweeter than what comes to mind when talking about red wine.